Accurate Death Toll a Casualty in Gaza

Fresh hostilities between Israel and Hamas over the past two weeks threaten to renew a dispute over the numbers that help shape coverage of the recurrent conflict.

Both Israelis and Palestinians died in the violence before Wednesday's cease-fire. On the Palestinian side, however, both the number of people killed by Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip, and the proportion of those killed who were civilians, are shrouded in ambiguity. The chief source of numbers is medical officials in Gaza, who some analysts say have an...